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Retail Co-location Methodology

Retail development capital is usually committed on comparables and analyst sentiment. Whether independent demand actually converges at a site — the reason it should succeed — is assumed rather than measured.

The Woodfine co-location methodology measures it. It ranks development sites by the objective convergence of independent, capital-intensive retail operators, not by market sentiment or analyst forecasts. The framework is operationalised by the deterministic ranking system and exposed to platform users via the co-location intelligence overview.

A node qualifies when a hypermarket, a warehouse club, and a home-improvement superstore have each independently committed capital within 1.0 to 3.0 km of one another. Each operator runs its own site-selection process; convergence is independent corroboration, not a single forecast. The qualification logic, cluster formation, and the anchor adjacency requirement are the three structural inputs to the index.

For a capital allocator the index is a defensive filter: it prioritises the sites where several parties have independently validated the trade area. This article covers the Named-Anchor Model, the three operator tiers, and the five quality tiers; sibling articles describe the O-D catchment methodology, the trade-area data sources, and the catchment ranking methodology.

The Named-Anchor Model

Large-format retailers apply rigorous, data-driven site-selection criteria before committing capital to a market. When several independent operators converge on the same geographic node, that convergence signals a validated commercial corridor — a location where multiple parties have independently confirmed the trade area's strength.

The methodology sorts these operators into three tiers, by commercial function and foot-traffic contribution.

Primary Targets — the anchor

The foundational requirement for any evaluated node; the core traffic driver.

  • North America: Walmart Supercentre.
  • Europe: IKEA, as the operational baseline.

Secondary Targets — commercial support

Complementary large-format operators that validate the trade area's commercial depth. They are evaluated within a strict 1.0 km to 3.0 km catchment radius of the Primary Target.

  • Secondary-1 (hardware): Home Depot, Lowe's, Leroy Merlin.
  • Secondary-2 (warehouse club): Costco, Sam's Club, Makro.

Tertiary Targets — institutional support

Civic and institutional infrastructure that provides a non-cyclical, stable demographic baseline. Evaluated within a 5.0 km catchment radius.

  • Tertiary-A (healthcare): major hospitals and medical centres.
  • Tertiary-B (higher education): universities and colleges.

Quality tiers and site validation

Sites are evaluated on a 12-rank matrix that maps to five quality tiers, separating commodity retail nodes from the rare locations where critical commercial elements converge. The map-facing labels — Regional, District, Local, Fringe — follow the ICSC retail property hierarchy described in tier nomenclature.

Tier Description Commercial validation
★★★★★ Tier 5 — Full co-location All four categories present: hardware, warehouse club, healthcare, higher education
★★★★ Tier 4 — Strong co-location Both commercial secondaries plus one tertiary; one institutional dimension absent
★★★ Tier 3 — Partial co-location Two categories present: a full secondary pairing, or one secondary with at least one tertiary
★★ Tier 2 — Limited co-location One category present: hardware only, or warehouse club with a single tertiary
★ Tier 1 — Anchor only Commercial secondaries largely absent: tertiary-only convergence, or warehouse club only

See co-location-ranking-system for the complete 12-rank specification, the rank-to-tier mapping, and site counts by tier.

Strategy and application

The co-location index acts as a defensive filter for capital deployment. By focusing on Tier 4 and Tier 5 nodes, an investor prioritises sites with the highest level of independent capital validation and the strongest multi-format demographic anchors.

The methodology applies consistently across global markets by mapping regional operators to these canonical roles. A planned expansion integrates logistics and transport data to add a fourth dimension to the matrix; that expansion is forward-looking and framed per [ni-51-102] and [osc-sn-51-721].

See also

Data sources

Anchor and secondary operator locations are sourced from OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). Records are filtered by canonical Wikidata brand identifiers to ensure consistent chain-family matching across borders. The full chain-to-family mapping is documented in retail-brand-family-taxonomy. [osm-odbl]

References

OpenStreetMap data © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under ODbL.

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